Would you drop your friends once married?

There has always been a heated debate on whether newly married couples should drop their single friends.

This is one of the first hurdles couples get to jump over once they say ‘I do’. Women are most affected as men tend to lean towards the ‘they are my boys’ line.

Women are expected to do away with their friends who haven’t crossed over yet. Friendships that have been through thick and thin for years and those sealed by lots of secrets go through a trying moment. Since love is blind, most of us end up losing people who have stood by us through these tough times.

Would you really sacrifice a friendship built on trust for the sake of your marriage? Personally, I don’t think I can be forced to drop a friend who is still single or befriend a married one. This miracle called friendship can only be felt by a willing heart. Pretence over the same never goes a long way as, sooner or later, we get tired and put on our true colours.

Some years back, during the time I was so close to getting married, my then fiancé had made it clear that he wanted me to cut ties with my single friends and befriend the married since, according to him, they would guide me better. So was I supposed to walk around shopping for married friends? What if I landed on a wolf in sheep skin? Would he still blame me for going astray?

I think being a positive or a negative influence all depends on one’s character. Just because you are not married does not mean you will bring down my new home and drag me back to singlehood... unless of course I am willing to comfortably walk back there.

There are many married people worse than the carpet spread on the floors of hell. Not everyone who walks around with a ‘husband’ or ‘wife’ title is a source of positive energy. Some are like flying snakes hovering around the earth spitting venom on all and sundry.

In the same way, not every adult who is single has lost direction in life. In fact, some of the people who give the best relationship advice are very single and not even ready to mingle. So before you push your spouse to drop the loyal friend they have had since childhood, think of the bottomless pit you could be pushing yourself into. If anything, you should be throwing that lot a huge party for taking good care of your spouse before you met them. If they were as bad as you assume, maybe, just maybe, you would never have met your spouse.

Things didn’t go well the one time I tried to do away with my single friends. I tried to do that blindly thinking my life would always revolve around this man. I listened to his every advice and actioned them as advised. I was there trying to befriend married women and they always looked at me like I was lost.

Anytime I tried to talk about children, I would be shushed and told I knew nothing about them. I would even be told, “You go have a baby then come we compare notes”.

When I tried to talk about my husband, they look at me like I had married King Mswati himself! I ended up confused about the topics of conversation my man expected me to engage in with these women. I shared so little with them. They were just some random women he introduced to me because they were married.

By the time I was ready to walk down the aisle, things went south and our relationship came to a sudden halt. I basically had no one turn to as I had dropped my friends like they were hot during my courtship with the man I thought I loved. Okay, I sure loved him, what I have never understood is if he ever loved me in the first place. Perhaps he had been sent by the spirits of doom to come and make me ‘friendless’.

Friendship should never be determined by one’s marital status, there is a lot much more to friendship than a golden ring around a tired finger!